only I can know
by Yui Miyamoto
Summary: Ginji thinks about when he looks at the sky 'outside' and when he looked down at the city from the 'inside'...


Disclaimer: Get Backers isn't a property of miyamoto yui. I do, however, own the poem.  
  
The rain doesn't stop pouring all over me.  
  
And I reach out to feel the red  
  
In between my fingers.  
  
It's nothing but blood  
  
And I'm struggling to understand...  
  
...why doesn't this move me?  
  
  
  
only I can know.  
  
By miyamoto yui  
  
No one could possibly have understood what I had done.  
  
I just left without looking back because I felt that was best at the time. I didn't like thinking too much about many things because they gave me headaches. And if I thought even further than my frustrations, my heart would start to ache more.  
  
I was lost. I didn't know what was happening inside of me and I didn't feel anything outside of me either.  
  
Shido looked at me in this weird way. I didn't know what to make of it. All I remembered was that I was trapped in that city. I couldn't breathe anymore because I could feel everything flowing right through me.  
  
But as I did that, I was losing myself. I was paying more attention to everything else except what was bothering me deep inside. My heart was already barren and everything was so empty.  
  
I couldn't tell MakubeX what the outside was. Years ago, I knew what would become of him if he tried to step out and I didn't want to face it. He was my little brother.  
  
How could someone I could feel while hugging or smiled back at me just be a program? Iya da yo!  
  
I left the Infinite Castle because I, who was born human in every sense of the word, was becoming something less than inhuman.  
  
The many nights I spent sitting on a cliff looking down at the city wondering what it meant to be on the outside. I was holding it all in because I was their leader, but how could I ever tell them how I was really feeling?  
  
I was afraid of myself. The person they all admired and feared was 'only human'. This fortress obeyed my whim. So...could I protect them when the time came?  
  
No. There was something wrong.  
  
If I stepped closer to my goal of revealing something, I felt that it would kill what was left of 'me'. And in that process of selfishness, I would kill all that were with me because I was 'only human'.  
  
I was not their emperor after all. Someday, I would come down from my throne and turn on them.  
  
I couldn't do that. I loved them so much.  
  
They're pain and their laughter gave meaning to my life. As ruthless as I was, when I touched those around me, they made me human inside. I was able to feel everything and understand what I needed to because of them.  
  
I wasn't going to ruin that for any of them and for myself.  
  
I had to leave.  
  
I left with Ban waiting for me on the other side. It wasn't an easy thing, though. Leaving or going was equally painful.  
  
And going with Ban was truly hard. Job after job, penniless, and fighting was all we ever did for a long while. We trusted each other, but it wasn't as if I walked out of the Infinite Castle and became this really happy, carefree guy in an instant.  
  
No, that was Ban-chan's fault.  
  
Whenever I would stay awake to look up to the dark sky, he asked me what I was looking at. And coincidentally, out of habit, I would be facing the Infinite Castle while I looked up at the sky. For many days and weeks, I didn't tell him anything. I didn't know how to tell him because I couldn't understand it myself.  
  
Then, one night, he told me, "I hate that look."  
  
"What look?" I asked while turning my head to face him while sitting on the hood of the lady bug.  
  
"The blank one." He took out a cigarette from his pocket and lit it while putting his foot up on the fender to balance his arm on his knee.  
  
"I always look this way," I laughed with an emptiness filling inside of me.   
  
"There's no need for you to hold back anything, you know." He ran his fingers through my hair and messed it up. Smiling, he said, "The 's' in Get Backers is _very_ important. We aren't alone."  
  
Putting his hand on my shoulder, he told me, "You have me, but if you'd rather not-"  
  
"No!" I found myself protesting. Even I was surprised by my outburst.   
  
"Then what are you truly afraid of, Ginji?"  
  
"Ban..."I leaned my forehead on his shoulder and buried my face there. I didn't cry because I didn't know how to, but my heart was aching. It was pouring out of me and I felt like a rush of water was running through me.   
  
I felt my own feelings after numbing them for so long. They were overwhelming me.   
  
"I'm not afraid of anything."  
  
"That's how it should be, but tell me what you're afraid of. Only I will know." Patting the back of my head, he looked up to the sky for me. "Only _I_ _can_ know."  
  
"What I fear the most..." I said as I began to grab onto his shirt as if in shame. "...is that I won't be able to feel anything. That I'll go back to being uncaring."  
  
"How can you ever be that way, Ginji, if you've never been that way?" His hand slowly and gently grabbed the back of my head.   
  
"What did you say?" I opened my eyes widely in shock.  
  
Did I hear what he just said? My heart began to beat faster and faster as if it was about to explode.  
  
Then, a tear fell from each of my eyes.  
  
"You left because you needed to protect them right? How can you say you're uncaring if you're always thinking that way?" He sighed as he shook his head a bit. "And even right now, you're thinking about why I've asked you to be my partner."  
  
"How do you know?"   
  
"Because I've been there."  
  
That was the day I knew. I knew that this person understood exactly who I was even if I didn't understand myself.  
  
I wanted to know more about him.  
  
And because of all these things, I never want to leave his side.  
  
"You think too much," he said while tapping his fist on the top of my head.   
  
"Ban-chan...you're still awake?" I looked at him as I sat on top of the car while looking up to the sky.   
  
The parking lot near the park was very quiet today.  
  
Ban sat next to me and shook his head. "Go to bed," he scolded.  
  
"I want to look at the stars more, Ban-chan," I whined while pouting.  
  
"You need rest, Ginji. C'mon." He then patted the back of my head. "If I leave you to think too much, you'll start to get moody."  
  
I laughed at him. "You know me too well."  
  
"I've got to keep Ginji genki. That's all." Then, he went back into the car and sat in the back seat. I shrugged my shoulders and came into the backseat too.  
  
Sitting on his lap, he pulled a warm blanket over us while I snuggled my head onto his shoulder. His arms held me while folding his hands over one another.  
  
I looked up into his face with his closed eyes. I smiled and leaned up to kiss him on the cheek.   
  
"Thank you," I said to him inside of my head.  
  
Then, I snuggled back into my position as he whispered into my ear, "Baka."  
  
I smiled more as I drifted off into a dream world.  
  
MakubeX, I now know the answer.  
  
There's nothing outside of the Infinite Castle. They're both the same because you just have to make life the way you want it to be.  
  
That is freedom.  
  
I was very lost because I didn't know what it meant to live. But I read a singer wrote:  
  
  
  
"The rain doesn't stop pouring all over me.  
  
And I reach out to feel the red  
  
In between my fingers.  
  
It's nothing but blood  
  
And I'm struggling to understand...  
  
...why doesn't this move me?"  
  
With Ban and this poem, I finally began to understand myself.   
  
Fear didn't equal or mean power came along with it.   
  
Knowing how to feel was power itself.  
  
It doesn't matter how you are made to live and be alive, as long as you keep struggling to live.  
  
You'll never be able to come back from the moment you forget and become numb deep inside.  
  
That is the moment you truly die.   
  
  
  
Owari.  
  
--  
  
author's note: It is a hard thing to come back from bitterness. I have fallen love with this character Ginji because he has the intensity, sweetness, kindness, and loneliness found both in my favorite characters Subaru of Tokyo Babylon and Ryuichi from Gravitation.  
  
I made this fic because I could feel his heart, for I had been once there before. My own fear is becoming unfeeling.  
  
Iya da yo - no!! 


End file.
